Anna Borg met with John Kerry in Geneva

On Wednesday, 29 September, Anna Borg was one of a few CEO:s invited to a meeting at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Geneva, Switzerland: The meeting was  hosted by the WEF and the US Department of State and the Special Presidential Envoy for the Climate, John Kerry.

The purpose was to discuss how the demand from business for new climate friendly technologies can be increased in a new initiative called First Movers Coalition.

Together with the World Economic Forum, Special Envoy Kerry plans to launch a new initiative, aiming at speeding up the development of new technologies that can remove emissions from “hard-to-abate” sectors, industries where solutions on how to eliminate the CO₂-emissions are yet to be developed.

Emissions from these sectors make up 30 percent of the global emissions and new innovations and technologies need to emerge if the climate goals are to succeed. By increasing the demand from companies, the idea is to speed up the transition in sectors like steel, aviation, trucking, shipping, chemical, concrete and other.

– There are many initiatives on how to reduce emissions, and we have a strong commitment from Vattenfall to be in line with the 1,5 degree target in the Paris agreement. This new initiative aims to increase the speed in the development of new technologies and create a strong demand for them. It is of course good for Vattenfall to be involved in this at an early stage as we both have some of the solutions but also since we do purchase some goods and services within the sectors in question. We will now look into how Vattenfall can be a part of this more concretely, says Anna Borg.

All details of the First Movers Coalition are not yet finalised and the idea is to launch a more concrete plan at COP26 in Glasgow later this autumn.

In April, Anna Borg was invited to speak at the White House Leaders Summit on Climate.